Of Arda, and the rise of a new Istari
by Zenzao
Summary: At the choice to pass on to his fate or remain in Uriel's service, Harry hesitates long enough for literal divine intervention, and he is given the chance to replace another Wizard, in another realm. But will a Wizard who pits fire against fire serve to forge the Fellowship anew in the wake of Moria, or will his coming be the final stroke that shatters their bonds for ever after?
1. Chapter 1: Stepping into Arda proper

I looked at the door to the great mysterious beyond and felt my non-corporeal heart pound out a staccato beat against my chest. Uriel stood slightly to my side and behind me as I stared at it and the eternity within.

The memory of that south-bound train Karrin's father had pulled me off of in the nick of time returned as I stared at the door, and the thought that I might be spending the rest of my here-after burning for my sins gave me enough of a pause to breath a short sigh.

_It shouldn't have been this hard_.

I should have just swallowed, reached out, and pushed the door open.

Instead I sighed shakily, turned a half-step to face Uriel, and asked, "This is really it, huh? No more second-chances, no more convenient archangels whispering into ears and altering the circumstances, just the one-way trip _forward_."

I expected him to nod in his vaguely warm fashion and gesture me onward or back to his side proper, as if he were saying _get on with it or stick around, son_, but Uriel did not do either of these things. He lowered his head to one shoulder, as if listening to an unseen speaker, and smiled. I stood and waited. After several particularly long seconds he looked up at me again.

"There is _one_ new option. I'm sure it would be right up your alley, after-all, creating a third circumstance when the initial two are not to your satisfaction, and would certainly forestall _this _decision for... potentially _years_." Uriel pointed with his chin back in another direction as he turned from the door and began to pace away.

I quickly swallowed the lump in my throat at the unexpected change of fortune and turned to follow him.

"The _spirit of intellect_ that you spoke with briefly at several recent points mentioned to you the true _vastness_ of our Father's creation, yes?" He asked me when I caught up. I nodded mutely. I didn't want to say something that might disrupt where this was going.

"Then you know that the earth outside of the Nevernever is just one of many - that is, that it is the one most focused toward reality, and that others reside within the breadth and width within that dimension."

That wasn't quite how Bob had put it, but it was near enough for me not to question the apparent gift horse.

"A circumstance has arisen toward the deeper end of the realms, and a_ wizard_ has been slain before his time in the middle of a struggle for hard-earned peace throughout that land. Would you take his place and guide as well as fight for the time that he has lost, until tyranny is overthrown?" Uriel finally asked.

Definitely as vague as I was used to, for that could be any number of worlds, of a near infinite myriad of possible people I would be replacing. But compared with the enormity of the imminent decision pressing down on me, I was willing to take a chance on living again.

"Yes," I answered.

Uriel's teeth shone as he laughed lightly, which did not reassure me.

"Oh, Harry. You will enjoy this, as much as any youth raised in this day and age might, compared to a wizard far older and rigidly confined. I hope you remember your _Quenya_."

"My _what_?"

A moment after uttering those two words and he reached up at a speed nearly beyond my ability to comprehend to press a hand against my forehead, and I fell into a blank slumber, to awake many, many leagues beyond even the reaches of Faerie in the distant corners of the Nevernever...

-(Istar i mor_)-_

The first sense I had was an awareness of my surroundings, and then the nakedness I felt within them, a vulnerability that I was unaccustomed toward even during my latest session as a wandering soul. I felt as if here, wherever here _was_, I could be felt not merely by the spiritual community, but the very nature about myself, and that others who were yet still alive and breathing would likewise look upon my self and view me for what and who I was.

When I opened my eyes, I was still the same as when I had spoken with Uriel, though the surroundings were far different; a vast and shadow-casting mountain lay before me, and the sounds of drums still echoed out from within its walls clearly.

Stretched out across the land to either side were trees and a long beaten path. Then those who were beating said drums emerged from a gash in the side of the mountain and I glimpsed the first in a long line of creatures, short, shallow, muck-and-tarred-skin black beneath the armaments worn.

They were not all that distant from the Goblins of the Erlking, if I felt like being charitable. Swords and arrows and shields, so on and so forth, hung across their bodies in scabbards and quivers and over forearms, and when they spoke the tone of their voice was pugnacious and souring upon the air.

"Fool! Ape-spawn!" One of their kind cursed another in a rough tongue that I could barely recognize. "You ought be stretched and whipped a thousand times by the Balrog's own thong!"

If I had blood, it might have chilled.

_Balrog_? _Quenya_? The puzzle pieces slid quickly into place as memories were awoken out of my younger years, spent reading before the flickering flames of a campfire. _Uriel, you son of a bitch. Don't you dare tell me this is Middle-earth, and if it is..._

My thoughts flickered off as another realization hit me- and it truly sucker-punched me, to be honest, as the meaning behind his words came together.

_Gandalf's dead and I'm his replacement, _I thought quickly. He had fallen in the fight. There would be no Gandalf-the-White to step in and guide the hobbits now that I had arrived.

Which meant that what I was looking at, and would in turn soon be looking upon _me_, were genuine, honest-to-Eru _Orcs_.

_Of Mordor._

_Oh, stars and stones._

I leaned over and pressed a hand to my forehead as the other rested across one upraised knee, feeling a sudden surge of emotions that could, at best, be referred to as a nerdgasm.

I was brought out of my mile-a-minute thoughts as one of the Orcs swore and drew his sword with a hiss, staring with beady yellowed eyes at my form, and having rather rapidly refreshed my memories of the stories, of the events within the books, I actually smiled.

It was said, after all, that the _Istari_ had veiled themselves in forms akin to the _Atani_, of men, and even old Sauron himself as a Maia proper when he set foot herein had not forsaken such an option even if he chose to look young and full of powerful life rather than aged and wiser, as the rest of those who followed after him did.

I knew it would be easier here to accomplish that act if I had the proper resources to utilize, and I had learned a remarkable degree about utilizing my resources and limited influence on the world about myself in the time since Jack Murphy had dropped me off at Mortimer's house those long days ago.

I drew in my will and my breath, and all of the memories I possessed about the series, of this world I now dwelt within, and my intentions all the same, and as I rose to my feet, I exhaled the simple commandment.

"_Be,_" I uttered.

Power thrummed from beneath my skin and spread outward and upward, covering my body like sheets of liquid flame, so that a warm-weight akin to being underwater pressed in upon my consciousness and mind and every nerve I was suddenly, and blissfully, aware of once again.

My will gathered and settled into place across my flesh in the usual choice of raiment and cloth, if accurate to the period and setting, so that I was clad in black from ear to boot. In my main hand my old, worn staff formed once more, and dangling from its neck lay my mother's silver pentacle pendant and the ruby within.

My first breath was a rush of sudden life, and I threw my head back and expelled it in a shout of exuberance, in a roaring-laugh of near-delirious joy and echoing challenge all the same.

Uriel was right; I _would _enjoy this, and dearly so.

The Orcs gnashed their teeth together at the sight of my newly gathered form, and without the Balrog at their aide, they were reluctant indeed to stroll under the noon-sun and face me.

"Come on, then, your dirt-licking sons of the mud! Return to your cavernous cradling burrows, hollows and holes, or stand firm and fight me," and here I paused in the middle of my declaration, and considered what I would call myself hereafter, before the words spilled over my lips as if guided but no less true in their own way, "for I am _Dresden the Black_, and I reap fire from the heavens and the earth, and consume all that stand in opposition with might unseen since the age of Gothmog, high lord of the Balrogs!"

The whistle of many an arrow being drawn back and slung forth pierced the warm air in response and, almost without thought, a concentric silver oval-shield materialized before my body and caught them, cast them aside to my left and right.

Fear appeared in their eyes, then.

They had faced down one Wizard this morn, and lost their greatest ally for it, and now anew came a second that could throw down their weaponry so easily. Moria had lessened their resolve to face such a foe, and I knew that had they been the Uruk-hai of Isengard, the challenge would have carried further, but these weak-spined wretches turned tail and fled rather than risk proving my words any truer.

To be sure I thrust my staff forward and crowed victoriously, "_Fuego!_" and sent a low surge of flame scorching up and into the hole in the rock face they had emerged from, so that the squeals and groans of pain reflected down the way toward me.

It felt glorious to be _alive _and able to distribute my spells wholly once again, and I couldn't help but grin as my thoughts turned toward the Fellowship, and Saruman, and all of the events that lay ahead.

"Looks like I had better get a move on before they finish trekking down to Parth Galen and splinter apart," I said to the air, and turned from the mountain to stride across the path.

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><p><strong>End of Chapter One.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2: Heir of Isildur, well met

The leaves crunched beneath my boots noisily as I approached the fields of Parth Galen, and the Company ahead. It felt good to have my staff in hand once more, and the old wood creaked pleasantly beneath my fingers as it tapped against the ground.

"Hail, Aragorn son of Arathorn," I called out across the distance yet separating us. I knew that he, and the rest of the men of Númenor, were still capable of truly Listening. He could also See quite clearly even that which should not have been visible to mortal eyes, and while it was not quite akin to my Wizards Sight, it was still a valuable tool for a living man to possess.

My voice sailed upon the wind and, mere moments later, he paused in his forward trek to look back and investigate, to confirm what he could only have doubted he had heard.

In a moment he turned away and spoke swiftly and not a little hastily to the others, and both Aragorn and Boromir turned back to face me together. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin rushed further ahead with a very reluctant Legolas in quick stride beside, but Gimli did not join them. The dwarf drew his axe and stomped up beside the men, and Aragorn spared him only a sharp and short flicker of the eyes and the barest tilt of the head before looking back to my form.

It took me no more than a moment to comprehend why they were fleeing my coming, and I frowned at my own foolishness; for why should they not run, when a man swathed in black to such a degree crept behind their footsteps, as like to the Nine as could be despite the few discrepancies between they and I?

I stopped in the middle of my next stride and planted my staff solidly, whipping up a slow wind to carry my voice and then calling over toward them, "Hail again, Aragorn son of Arathorn, and Boromir son of Denethor, and Gimli son of Glóin."

The wind carried my message clearly to the three, and Aragorn called back after but a moment, when the current had turned from them. "It is good that you have halted, stranger, for another step more and we would have forsook words in place of arms," he said mildly. "To what is your purpose, haunting our steps? Is it not enough that you have felled our companion, at the cost of your own servant in the process? Do you seek to delay us still as the armies of your slaves rally and give chase? Speak! and be quick of it!"

I tilted my hat back so they could see my face and the open expression there. _They think I'm old Saruman in disguise, then, if not one of the Nine. Not much I can do about that to convince them otherwise, _I thought before nodding once, and then I lowered my staff to the ground and knelt to set my hat upon the pendant.

Evocation was not a strong-suit of mine without a conduit to focus my magic through, but I could still perform it if necessary, and I hoped that letting go of the object of power would set their concerns to rest for a few moments at least, for no Wizard could work their magic sufficiently without it carried in hand.

"I seek to aide the Company on their unspoken quest, decided as it was upon Rivendell some days prior ere this hour passed, for I am neither Saruman the fallen, once the White, nor a servant of the great eye or enthralled by its powers," I answered him at length. "I am of the kin of Olórin, and Curunir. I am _Istari_, what you would call the Wizards, and I am Dresden the Black," and again I paused to consider my words carefully, for that connotation held much in the way of darkness during these days.

After a moment of silence I decided what I needed to, and the strength returned to my voice.

"Yes, I am Dresden the Black, after the same manner as Gandalf the Grey, Radaghast the Brown, Pallando and Alatar the Blue, and as I have said, Saruman the-once-White."

I raised one hand palm upwards as I muttered, "_Flickum Bicus,_" and snapped my fingers so that the tiny flame surged before them in clear view of the other men and dwarf.

"I command the flames of Arda and consume all who stand opposed, choosing to match the strength of fire to fire, with wit as I may, and I have come at this time at the hastening of my Vala from beyond the seas," I answered his questions and looked up from the dancing heat.

It was all _technically_ accurate. Not wholly _true_, as it may be, yet no less valid in interpretation.

"I know much that has happened, and may guess yet further still what is to come, for I have been blessed with the gift of foresight and forethought to some degree. Will you hear me out, son of Arathorn and son of Denethor, and of course son of Glóin?" I asked, not feeling too bad about the twisting of my words.

Boromir drew his sword after but a moment, and he spoke quickly to both of the others in a low tone so that his words were not carried back by the wind toward me.

It was obvious he wanted to have no part with my aide or otherwise, though, and Gimli seemed to have a like-mind as he fingered his axe haft- I could guess indeed that he wanted revenge for what had befallen his people in Moria, to say nothing of the fall of Gandalf still fresh upon their minds.

Aragorn rested a hand to Boromir's own and spoke something softly in return, but the heir to the steward of Gondor would not be pacified. He stepped forward and brandished his blade at my form, and shouted back.

"I at least shall hear no more, foul Wizard! Take thine false appearances and false promises back to Isengard where they belong!" He cried out heavily.

If I had been younger, even in so much as I was before being killed upon the Waterbeetle, I might have answered his tone with anger in return and done something irrationally unwise. But here I was calmer, and less quick to strife and to strike out, for in this world where none of my enemies dwelt I could truly take the time to measure out my reactions and words.

I clenched my hand shut and dispersed the flame there, and dropped down to sit on the ground entirely. "Go then where you will, heir of the steward, but be wary! There are greater dangers aloft throughout Amon Hen than any of you expect, despite my warning gesture to the horde preparing to set out in hunt of the Company from Moria's long shadow, and an arrow may move quicker than mortal men can evade."

Boromir's expression moved swiftly toward his anger, but Aragorn intervened again, and this time I had no trouble understanding his words.

"Be still a moment and think!" He advised, matching his gaze to his fellow man's. "The earth does not tremble with the might of the gathered Orcs of Moria, not as it did when we fled that domain. Indeed, their trampling is confined beyond and behind our current passage." He said, staring out over the way behind me for a moment to confirm his own words.

Gimli took a step forward to join them better. "I agree with Boromir, lad. I've heard of no such Wizard in all of our recordings, and I rather doubt the elf will have any better." He stated firmly.

Aragorn sighed and shut his eyes for a moment. "Will all sense and ration abandon us upon this day? Verily! so be it, if a challenge is what you desire so, than step back and rest, for strong though we may be together there is strength yet-unbidden within the Sword that was Broken and is Not. I fear that strength alone is all which might compete against fell magic, and I would not sacrifice your lives in this unnecessary strife!" He barked at them when each looked quite ready to refuse.

I didn't stir from my position on the ground, but I felt a thrill surge through my body as the king-of-Gondor-in-exile, the heir to the throne truly, crossed the distance between us at a rapid stride.

His hand settled upon the hilt of Andúril, and a vision spread before my eyes as the clouds parted and a ray of sunlight sparked across his nearly-shadowed form, so that for a moment I saw not merely Michael, but Shiro reflected within his appearance.

If any man from another realm could have wielded the Swords of the Cross, it was truly Isildur's heir as he approached me now.

"I would not take arms against you, son of Arathorn," I told him quietly when he had at last stopped several feet beyond my spot. "My enemy is but the Eye, within its cold Tower, and those who serve beneath _him _be it willingly or otherwise at this point. If you think it wise to draw Andúril against me I will not oppose it, and indeed I would welcome the touch of that legendary blade if it were otherwise so presented."

Our eyes looked upon one another and the connection of a Soul Gaze established itself- only to be reflected, cast aside and denied by some inner will and wellspring of strength he possessed- no doubt the fortitude that had allowed him to throw aside Sauron's black will when he looked upon the Palantir properly some weeks from now.

He drew the hilt out a few inches without flinching, though I couldn't exactly say the same, as I blinked and leaned back in surprise; it felt like the utter denial that the Guardian Angel serving beneath Uriel had performed, when I chose to see it with my Wizards Sight.

"You may have tried to conquer my spirit, _Istari_," he stated softly as the blade rose further still, "but I have taken it unto myself and reversed your spell; and lo! I have seen some glimpse of what you are, and of what you represent. You are not of Arda, not wholly, and nor would I claim you to be that which you state; but I have seen the Vala you proclaim and in him is the fire of Ilúvatar. To what reasons you have come are not clear to me- but I am assuaged of your intentions to aide the Fellowship," he said slowly.

I exhaled in relief and smiled loosely before he drew the sword in full, and Andúril sliced a thin line across my left cheek while my guard was down. I hissed lowly as the absurdly sharp edge bit through my gathered flesh and spilled faint dews of blood 'pon the grass.

He stared a moment more before sheathing his sword and leaning down, gripping my right hand and drawing me back to my feet. "Rise, _Dresden the Black_," he intoned. I gripped my staff and drew it upright as well, recognizing the reason for his action even if it burned irritably, and I shuffled my staff to the crook of one elbow so that I could press the same hand against my cheek.

"Look and see, my companions!" Aragorn faced the other two and called across the distance clearly. "This battle has been fought and the stranger bleeds as truly as you and I, were we dealt such a cut. What suspicions as I held are allayed at this moment, and I ask that you as well set them aside ere we go forward."

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><p><strong>End of Chapter Two.<strong>


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